Once Upon A Murder
by 13.shimer.13
Summary: Women are being murdered, and a serial killer is the cause. Written from Joan's perspective, it centres around their journey to find the person who is killing so many women-all of whom appear to symbolise princesses from Disney films. The first chapter... is sort of irrelevant to the plot. The other chapters will focus on the mystery. Probably. Title by Forensiphile!
1. A Deadly Game of Chicken

Chapter One: A deadly game of chicken.

Disclaimer: I don't own Elementary, I don't own the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, I don't own anything.

"Morning, Watson!" it was a voice I had come to hate in the mornings. I had no need of an alarm clock when he woke me up everyday.

"Goh wagh." I mumbled, turning over and pulling my pillow over my head.

"Sorry, what was that?" Ungodly cheerful, good for nothing... my room-mate, best-friend, partner in crime solving: Sherlock Holmes, every body. You might have heard of him. He's the biggest ass state-side since he left London. Lucky London. _They_ get peace and quiet. _They_ get lie-ins, and don't have to put up with him.

He threw clothes onto my bed, as he had done six of the last seven times he had woken me this week. And it was only Wednesday.

"What is it?"

"A murder! Rise and shine." I turned to glare at him, but my attention was caught by red. My alarm clock, which was sadly rarely used. 5am.

"You're waking me up at 5am because of a murder?"

"Well, of course. Now, get up and pick out your underwear—or I will for you."

"There'll be another murder in a minute," I muttered angrily. I wasn't going to get out of bed. "Who died, the Queen?"

"No, more of a princess really."

"You're kidding."

"I assure you I am being perfectly serious, Watson." I saw him reach to open my underwear draw, and rolled out of bed, hitting him. He fell down; I landed on top of him with my hands either side of his head.

"You're not allowed in there," I told him. He made a show of looking at my chest, raised an eyebrow, and then smirked. Of course he had a view. But if he wanted to play it that way—well, we could play it that way.

I smiled, leaned in and licked his ear. His body stiffened beneath me, and I held in a giggle.

"Don't. Fuck. With. My. Stuff. Sherlock," I whispered. Like a little cartoon character, he visibly gulped. I pulled back and smiled sweetly. "Understood?"

His smirk was back. "What are you going to do if I go in there anyway? _Kiss_ me?" His hands came up to hold my waist. We were now locked in a deadly game of chicken.

"Oh, I will if I have to."

"I don't think you've got the guts to." he goaded, with a smile.

"I have. I'll kiss you right now, to prove it." I stared defiantly in his eyes, and moved forward. I didn't really want to—I wanted to go back to sleep, that was all—but I was making a point.

"Are you sure you want to? You don't have to kiss me to prove a point."

"No, I'm going to kiss you. I have plenty of guts." We inched closer.

"Because you can always back out now."

"So can you."

"Well I'm not going to."

"Well neither am I. For someone who doesn't want to back out, you're trying awfully hard to convince me not to kiss you." Our lips were almost touching.

He pulled away, and coughed. "Murder case, Watson. I've made you a smoothie, and some toast. In the kitchen." I nodded and got up, grinning. I won.

"Now, turn around, or go outside while I get dressed!" He smiled sadly, opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it and left abruptly. At the door he paused and looked over his shoulder.

"I won't kiss you like that, Watson." I carried on pulling my top down. What other way would he want to kiss me?


	2. Red Nails, Fairy Tales

Chapter Two: Red nails, fairy tales.

Disclaimer: I don't own Elementary, I don't own ACD's stories, I don't own The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I have a copy of it, but that is neither here nor there.

A/N: Thank you for reviews! I will read and reply to them soon.

We took the subway—or as Sherlock called it, the 'Tube'. I'd had the smoothie before we left, and ate the toast on the way there. Sherlock didn't seem to have eaten. He was acting a little off; but it was quarter to six, and we were going to a murder scene.

I yawned, and Sherlock jumped. "What's got you so nervous?" he scowled.

"I'm not nervous. I am anxious. To get to the crime scene. To solve the crime." he shrugged. "Well, we're here, best be going." he pushed past a few people in his rush to get off. It always amazed me how quickly he moved when we had a case; when we didn't he would sit around for hours, not talking.

The warehouse would have looked creepy, if it hadn't been for the many people doing their jobs, and the burst of sunlight which illuminated it.

"Ah, Captain Gregson. Sorry we're a tad late. This one," he pointed at me, with a mocking glare, "took ages to get up."

"Would have been quicker if we hadn't had that disagreement." I pointed out. Bell walked over, his mouth set in a grim line. He nodded to me, and then to Holmes.

"What disagreement?" Gregson asked with a yawn.

"It was—" I began, but Sherlock cut me off.

"—No matter of consequence!" Gregson raised an eyebrow.

"Must be _some_ matter of consequence," he said.

"He's upset because I won it," I told him with a grin.

Gregson smiled warmly at me. He'd stopped trying to make me leave after the arrest of Moriarty. "I don't doubt you did win it," he smiled at Sherlock. "You trained her. Don't be bitter she can best you, now."

"I'm not bitter!" Sherlock yelled, raising his hands in a dramatic flourish. Bell snorted.

"No, not bitter at all," he drawled. "As lovely as this all is, shall we go in and look at the body?"

I bit my lip. I'd almost forgotten why we were standing around the warehouse. By the look on Sherlock's face, I knew he had, too. The first think I noticed about the room was that it smelt strongly of books, but there was only one book in it, and a fairly small one at that. It lay in the corpse's hand. A young girl, wearing a bright yellow ball gown. I blinked. Not the sort of thing you saw every day.

"Quite a dress," Sherlock said. I noticed he was far more interested in the book than what she was wearing. "Look at her eyes, though. They're wide open." he leaned down. "The way her head is angled... it's almost like she's reading the book. She is looking intently at the page. If we track her eye line, I wonder if we will find a message."

"A message?" Bell frowned. "Does she have a pencil hidden in that big old dress of hers, or..?"

I clicked my fingers. "Look at her fingernails!"

"They're red," Sherlock said with an eyebrow raised. "Well done Watson, you've solved the case!" a hit to the back of his head shut him up.

"They're red, yes. But they're also recently painted, but very chipped. Do you remember the other day when I was reading one of your books, and you got very annoyed because I accidentally marked it with my nail polish?"

Sherlock glared. "Vividly." was his crisp reply.

"Well the brand of nail polish was cheap, I got it from a drug store, I wasn't going anywhere nice so I just used that one... anyway, this nail polish, while expertly applied, is also very cheap. There aren't any marks on that page, but I'm sure if we flick through from the beginning she will have made marks by words, to spell out a message. How else could they have gotten so chipped so quickly?"

"A good theory," Sherlock said tapping his chin with his hand. "But why wouldn't she use nail polish from the pot, then?" I rolled my eyes.

"Do you honestly think our killer would let her be alone with a bottle of nail polish? She could have easily put a message on the wall, or in her book and he would have seen. She had to be sneaky. Make a note of the page it's turned to, if you like. If my theory doesn't work, we can go back to yours. Her eye line isn't going to change," I pointed out when Sherlock looked like he was about to argue. "She's _dead_."

"Oh, _thank _you. I hadn't noticed, Watson." I hit him on the head again.

"Oww!"

"Do what the lady says, Holmes." Gregson smirked.

I took a moment to look more properly at the victim, now my colleagues had moved and no longer blocked the light. She was very young. Her long, curly brown hair was half up and half down, framing her small pale face. She had a couple of spots, and I could see that her eyes were brown. A lovely shade, but empty. Dead. Shivering, I looked at the other side of her face—the left side. It was something we had all done our best to ignore, but there was no denying that half of her face had been savaged.

"It looks like an animal did it," I said out loud.

"A beast, even," Sherlock added quietly. "Strange that, isn't it?" He asked.

"Well of course it's strange when someone is _mauled to death!_"

"No, not that. Look at the facts. Brown hair, brown eyes, white skin, big fluffy yellow dress. She smells like books—she smells like she has been rolling around in the British Library, for goodness sake! And in the corner over there is a table with tea cups and a tea pot on, a small candelabra and a little clock. Add to that, that the cause of death appears to be a beast, and what do you get?"

"Beauty and the beast?!"

"Precisely. Our murderer appears to have a Disney kink. And I would be surprised if another girl wasn't murdered, and soon. It's just a matter of time before we find out whether it's just Beauty and the Beast they were dissatisfied with, or a range of the films."

"How's my theory holding up?"

"Rather well," Sherlock said with a little smile. "Very good, Watson. I would have thought of it myself, eventually, but you have certainly sped the process up."

Bell rolled his eyes and hit Sherlock on the back of the head for me—he was closer.

"I do wish you would both stop doing that!"

"We will when you stop being a jackass."

"In any case, the book is _The Bell Jar_ by Sylvia Plath. If someone would be so kind as to pass me a pen and some paper, I will write down the message our victim has left us. I do _love_ an intelligent murder victim. They have all of the information at their disposal, it seems so unfair that they should all die."

"Ugh, yes, because the most upsetting thing about them dying is they can't tell you who did it—not the fact that they _died_."

"I knew you'd see it my way. Now be quiet, I'm trying to concentrate."

"Bu—"

"—Na uh uh, Watson! Silence, or I shall replace you with Angus again." A brief sigh was my only reply. He wouldn't dare.


	3. Checking the Corners

Chapter Three: Checking the Corners

Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

"Right, I've worked out the message. It's odd because she was on page one hundred and twenty-two, but the message is all within the first five pages. There are no other nail polish marks elsewhere in the book."

"What is the message, then?"

"There are multiple messages. What she has done is use her nail polish to make a mark at the beginning of a phrase and at the end of a phrase. The first message is; 'I didn't know what I was doing in New York,' on page one. The next is a two part message; it begins with 'I was,' on page three, and continues 'Katy,' on page four. So our victim's name is Katy, and she is not a New York native."

"Good," Gregson said. He turned to Bell. "Start searching for missing persons with the name Katy—first and last; it could be either. Though it is more likely it's her first name, we can't rule out the possibility of it being the last."

"Now, the next part of the message." Sherlock said. "I believe it relates to her captor's description, since it does not match hers, and she would not need to tell us her own description. I like this victim a lot," he said with a nod. "Very astute. Now then, on page four she has further marked 'bright white hair' and then on page five, 'fashion conscious.' The last message she has left is 'read a couple of languages.' which was on page five. What strikes me as very odd is that she was on page one hundred and twenty-two, though. Perhaps she intended to leave another message, but I don't know what she could possibly want to say." He coughed, long speech over.

"So we have a message to work with," I said slowly. "That's good and all, but what about the dress?"

"Why is the dress important?" Gregson asked.

"Well," I examined the material. "You can't just buy a dress like this from any old shop," I pointed out. "You need to have this specially made, or maybe he made it himself—one of her messages was that he was fashion conscious. Shouldn't we try to ask around about the dress, and the other outfits over there?"

"What other—" I pointed at the corner. It was a lot darker there, and it would have been easy to miss them. Sherlock nodded.

"Good, Watson. You are much more observant than you used to be. How long did it take you to notice?"

"I looked in all of the corners when we entered the room, took it all in." I allowed myself a small smile—I _had_ come a long way.

"Excellent. I imagine you noticed the semen in the other corner?" I sighed. Of course I'd missed something.

"I didn't."

"A shame," he said. He stepped over to examine the semen and shrugged. "The motive for this killing was not sexual, however. We can come back to the semen later. For now we should focus on the clothing, as Watson said."

"You know much about haute couture?" Bell asked Sherlock, crossing his arms.

"No," Sherlock said with a smile. "But I know a seamstress."


	4. The Seamstress

Chapter Four: The Seamstress.

Disclaimer: I only own Adrianna Draper.

The 'seamstress' Sherlock knew was Adrianna Draper—one of the best fashion designers around, and touted as the next Prada or Gucci.

"Holmes!" An Irish accent caught our attention, and we saw Adrianna Draper walk in. Draper was a tall, broad woman, with straight black hair and olive toned skin. She wore a frothy pink dress and a wicked smile. Sherlock kissed her hand—she pulled it away and slapped him on his right side cheek. Sherlock winced.

"What was that for?!" A kiss to the left cheek, and she left him to examine the corpse, which still hadn't been moved yet.

"Dublin," she told him, briskly assessing the dress. I couldn't help but be impressed by her; the brisk manner, her ease with a murder victim, and her easy way with Holmes. Something about her was familiar. Perhaps she reminded me of Irene—or Moriarty, rather. Holmes was never surrounded by many people, but those women in his life; Ms Hudson, Moriarty, Adrianna… were all strong, confident women.

"Dublin! Oh, that was nothing. You're exaggerating."

"You vomited in every single room of my cottage, wrecked my car in a fit of anger, and had sex with almost every single girl in that village nearby! Their parents were furious with me!"

"That was fifteen years ago! I was young!"

"Your father fired me as your baby sitter and kicked me out onto the streets!"

"Which allowed you to pursue a career in fashion and build a clothing empire!" he pointed out, exasperated.

"Regardless! You were long overdue a slap."

"You've been making my waist coats for years—I thought you were over it."

"Over it?" she snorted. "You may be clever, Holmes, but that was remarkably unobservant of you. Your father pays me to make your waistcoats and mend them as necessary. I don't have to forgive you for that. Now, the dress. Very good work; whoever put this together has had absolutely no training before. It's glorious. Obviously based on Beauty and the Beast—remember when we watched that together? You loved the part with the candlesticks!—and it feels very well put together. Expensive materials have been used, and this just feels _loved_. We think the murderer did it?" Sherlock nodded. "Excellent. I would say you're looking for a woman, then. The way they've worked, it just feels more like a woman did it. I can usually tell the gender. A little talent I have. Now, something that is nagging at me about this is that it seems familiar. But I am fairly sure I've never seen work like this before." She moved away from the body, spotting the other outfits in the corner.

"Ah. These," she held up blue jeans and a purple sweater "can be purchased from stores and are not designer. The clothes the victim was taken in, perhaps. This dress on the other hand," now she held up a pink dress. "Is another imitation. We have the yellow dress on the victim; the master piece, the one that gives the immediate clue. This pink one was also in the movie. I believe it is at the part where the Beauty and the Beast are getting to know one another. And of course, that blue one crumpled up on the floor is the dress from the beginning, where Belle is a poor girl in a little village."

"Is it possible that he dressed her up in these outfits in turn, starting with the blue one and getting to the yellow one, going through the story with her?" Gregson asked. Sherlock nodded.

"Entirely possible that that's what happened. The blue dress is the last on the pile; the pink is on top of it. But there is a discrepancy. The clothes she wore when she was kidnapped are on top of the two others. Why? Surely they should have been at the bottom of the pile."

"Perhaps she was only allowed to wear the special clothes at certain times," I suggested. "I uh, mean. It's entirely plausible that the killer didn't want the clothes to get ruined, right? They spent ages making the clothes from scratch; doesn't it stand to reason they're special occasion clothes? Like dress up, but more sadistic. It's unlikely the killer was with the victim all the time, so why should the victim wear the clothes all the time?" I waited for someone to tell me to stop babbling, but nobody did. Instead, everyone was nodding.

"Are we about done yet? I have this divine design swirling around in my head, and I must jot it down," Adrianna said, her pretty brown eyes fixed on Sherlock.

"Yeah, I'd say we're all done here for the day. Bell, tell Clarkson he can come for the body now." Dismissal given, we all left, Adrianna and Sherlock bickering about old times and Bell looking for Clarkson—whoever that was.

"Miss Watson, I believe?" Adrianna asked. We were all walking down the street, Sherlock and I to the Subway, her to…wherever it was fancy fashion designers went.

"Yeah, I'm Joan."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I would have said hello earlier—Holmes here has told me plenty about the woman who stopped him from doing heroin—but the body put a bit of a dampener on things."

"Yet you _still _managed to embarrass me in front of my colleagues about Beauty and the Beast. I think you handled seeing your first corpse well," Sherlock informed her. Adrianna stuck her tongue out at him.

"You know when I talk to you I still turn into a little child."

"A very nice little child."

"Watch it, Holmes. That sounded a little creepy," she pushed him on the shoulder and their bickering continued. It was nice to just walk beside them and listen, a little smile on my face. Yes, Sherlock kept very little company. But the company he did keep was always very exciting, and that was perhaps what I loved most about my (admittedly unpaid) job.


End file.
